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The Financial recompense needs to be a lot higher to entice Trading.I think that we need more Trading Vessels than we already have,the current ones are too small really.An "Auction" of Traded goods in Ports would be a good idea,then the items could them be used to "Craft" Ships,modules and Consumables.NPC Traders need to be well balanced,the last we need is a ship loaded with High end stuff,at the same time they need to be something that we would attack for a decent return.Obviously a smaller Warship couldnt carry all the Cargo so i think that Capturing Traders would be the order of the day rather than sink them.Player controlled Traders would be Targets for "plunder" so some form of Escort,be it player or bots needs to happen.One problem that springs to mind is finding out just where to sell and buy a particular commodity,travelling from Port to Port is bit of a waste of time.

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Resource types are going to depend very much on what we, the players, and/or ai, are crafting. The list for shipbuilding items for example was never finalized as far as i know? Trading and supplies will very much depend on what crafting is going to be in game, surely start at the top work back?

Can you give us some idea on what items will we be making and then we can tell you what we need to make them.

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I think that every port should be limited to certain resources. Not that you can buy every resource you need from 1 port but that you have to sail a good distance to find a specific resource. We should do a bit of research of the history of resources in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

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All depend a bit from what big players base you can get. If there will be too many resources and small amount of players economy can be dead. Generally i dislike PotBS economy system but they got some good ideas as well just not fit for amount of players. I try write some ideas after work...

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Resources could be used to "craft" "Ship Modules"(not upgrades)that you need to build ships.For example a Lynx needs 5 "Ship Modules" to build.each module needs a certain amount of Wood,Iron,Rope(sisal),Canvas,which has to be gathered by the Traders and "stored" in the Port "Dockyard",once enough "ship modules" have been accrued then the ship will be "Built" taking different times for each ship(rather than an instant build).You could also have "Naval Architects" and "Expert Shipwrights" than could speed up the building process.

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well i would like an option to scrap ships for materials. this was something that was huge in the Bahamas. in fact that is how morgans bluff got it's name. Morgan was not really a ship captain but a wrecker, he used to change all the channel markers causing passing ships to wreck. he would then go out in small boats "rescue crew" for a fee and then scavenge and loot the ships. so when traveling through that area captians had to guess weather the markers had altered at all or if morgan was bluffing them.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Tief N Tote

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Each item should have an m3(Volume) and weight(Ton or kg). store as much and as many items as you wish in your cargo until volume or weight reaches the ships maximum cargo capacity. Get rid of this ship has "X" number of storage slots (its very 1980's rpg).

Each ship should have a realistic Cargo capacity split into a few key areas.

All cargo could be stored thrown in the cargo bay, but this may not give the most efficient therefore most cost effective way to store items.

A ships capacity should never be increased beyond its crafted maximum. But perhaps there is always a 'wastage' amount of the capacity depending on how general its design is for various cargo. General cargo space could perhaps be maxed out at 80% of its volume and or Tonnage to represent ill fitting cargo items taking up space and gangways between it, left open for access.

Perishable , livestock, passengers etc may reward higher gains by having particular storage available. Modifying cargo bays was a normal practice by ships officers when considering their cargo. But may have a small price associated through the expenditure of materials with a gain of being able to carry more of the specific item.

Have basic raw resources available from realistic ports located around the Caribbean.

Availability + Port infrastructure to provides 'x' amount per day of resource (Port infrastructure could be player driven/supplied) better the availability and infrastructure the more would become available as a trade good. Potentially only player driven with no ai assistance apart from possible initial seeding levels.

None Perishables could be available for long or short jpourney reward/trading.

Missions. Player created 'contracts' or AI created contracts. Carry item X from Port A to Port B. Could be volume and or speed of passage restrictions.

Missions, Collect for me from port X, items Y within Z time

Missions, Carry player captain from 'this port' to his outpost 'x' in real time the player is 'moved' on the ocean to target port(Interdiction and capture or sinking of the ai vessel(Or player vessel) results in delay of carrying the player whilst new arrangements are made he is placed into nearest neutral or friendly nation port.

This player could have offline orders for his captain to automatically obtain a new passage contract until his arrival at his final destination. (This would not carry his ship, and any goods he wanted to take could be limited to 'personal items' carryable in a small sea-chest perhaps)

Have a few ports historically correct for gathering materials generally shipped to distant markets (Eastern major hubs of the Caribbean). Have AI traders prepared to buy at flexible prices depending on recent player supplied volumes.

Have European and other distant market AI goods available at these ports for purchase and trade amongst the Caribbeans other ports.

-Agriculture and Textiles - (Basic and Premium agriculture types, explorers who find land and new agriculture types, basic and premium structures and recipes to build them. agriculture processing and final materials and textiles.)

-Mining and Metal Working - (Basic and Premium raw metal types, explorers who find mines, basic and premium structures and recipes to build them. Metal refining and final metal materials.)

-Shipbuilding and Provisioning - (Basic and Premium ship ingredients, basic and premium structures and recipes to build them. Packaging provisions and combining everyrthing together with recipes to build ships.)

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I think medicine should be a big resource that can only be bought at major ports. This would be the trading bread winner for the more richer player who is around end game. Maybe small ports wouldn't be able to offer you direct gold payments but maybe you can barter for other resources instead. Jewelry might be another rare commodity as well.

I think trader brigs and snows should start dropping resources. That would be a good way for new players to make money as I never waste my time attacking those ships nowadays.

I think each resource should have weight and volume. Depending on the weight and volume will determine how many units you can fit in your cargo hold instead of these arbitrary stack sizes you have now.

I think slave trading should be allowed for pirates only.

Ultimately, I think you guys need to add mastercraft/exceptional ship crafting in before we will see any real incentive for ppl to trade and gather resources. Once we have port battles, maybe a small set of ports would be ship crafting ports for some of the larger ships that would give ppl a reason to fight over them.

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I have being trying out the trading function with the limited resource structure currently in place and make the following observations and suggestions.

Current 'resources' trading is not profitable enough at the current pricing, the buy and sell price leave insufficient margin to make a profit that is comparable to war. Example; an evening spent trading netted me less than 3000 gold whereas a single battle can net over 1000 gold. The pricing needs adjustment.

The single trader vessel has insufficient capacity, we should be able to 'hire AI trader' fleets and maybe have bigger variety of trading vessels. These we can escort ourselves creating interesting combat scenarios defending them from attack.

Pricing appears to be fairly evenly geographically spread at present. I would prefer that distant ports (from nations centers) sell at a lower price giving an incentive to travel larger distances to make more money.

Rare high sale price goods need to be introduced in distant ports to encourage exploration with the bonus of huge profit.

Traders need to have the ability to both to discover sources of commodities and then set up their own trading outpost that they control, in other words they can sell the 'rare goods' to other players and control the price of the resource. This would be high cost to set up and would work by the revenue from that particular shop being deposited in the players account.

Traders might one day be able to finance other players trading expeditions by providing ships and funds for a share of profits.

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We should know when we buy a ressource at what price we can sell it in an other port. (Ports could changed every week, as prices, making the economy dynamic)

Its avoid waste of time for casual players who don t have too much time to play. We consider thats prices of ressources are knowned by merchants when they travel.

We also need gold and silver as ressources.

We also need to think about the escort system, making it more profitable for ppl who escort, to encourage teamplay.

-One trading ship alone : lot of profit but very dangerous

- One trading ship with one or two ai fleet to escort : less profit

-one trading ship with one or two players escorting : nice profit for all

How do I know the other port's prices? I can't check the markets on a computer or telephone? If there is going to be the ability to know about a price in another port before you leave your current port, it needs to be delayed by an amount of time similar to travel times between those two ports. While I don't think you need to go port to port checking to see if you can sell there, you shouldn't have up to the moment information on prices in those other ports either. A delayed price that is valid as of x amount of time ago might be the way to go. Maybe at server reset the prices for two hours earlier are published across the board, and they stay static for the day. If you're late to market, just like in real life, you're going to have to sell somewhere else.

To me, that is part of being a merchant. It's not just finding the best price for something and sailing there. You need to gain an understanding of the market, what a port truly needs and therefore will generally pay well for, and what the port doesn't need and it's a waste of time to haul there. I don't think the merchant role should just be a trucker that knows he just hauls A to B, B to C, and C to A all the time and makes an automatic profit for it.

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I have being trying out the trading function with the limited resource structure currently in place and make the following observations and suggestions.

Current 'resources' trading is not profitable enough at the current pricing, the buy and sell price leave insufficient margin to make a profit that is comparable to war. Example; an evening spent trading netted me less than 3000 gold whereas a single battle can net over 1000 gold. The pricing needs adjustment.

You didn't find the right stuff. I was making 3,000-5,000 profit on each trip with a fully loaded trader's brig. Ports were less than 10 minutes apart.

This is how trading should be. Profitable to some, not profitable to others.

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With Iron and Coal I made some very profitable short range trips, like Prater said. However I find that the way the port increases/deacreases prices is somewhat off, since they adjust it in way that it is no longer profitable anymore after some few trading runs.

For Example:

Oak at X ===> 9000 Buy 2 / Sell 1

Oak at Y ====> 10 Buy 10/ Sell 5

This is a profitable trade route, yep. However once we start trading, by the economy laws the port X start selling at a bigger price, and the port Y starts buying at a lesser price. And soon we arrive to this type of situation:

Oak at X ===> 8000 Buy 4 / Sell 2

Oak at Y ===> 1010 Buy 7/ Sell 4

You can see now this business is not profitable anymore... However there is still a difference between the stocks quantity of each port, and that's why it doesn't feel right, because there is a very big difference between each port, however one can no longer use this trading anymore.

Several ports have already arrived at this state of "stall" and now its more difficult to keep trading with this sort of system, as the profitable trades are becoming less and less very fast.

I guess a good suggestion would be that the ports that "produce" a resource would re-stock its quantity every X time for example, and then the ports that buy resources, every X amount of time they consume those resources, with this renewing the profitable window, making the business profitable in the long run.

Edited July 10, 2015 by SuperEtendard

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To me, that is part of being a merchant. It's not just finding the best price for something and sailing there. You need to gain an understanding of the market, what a port truly needs and therefore will generally pay well for, and what the port doesn't need and it's a waste of time to haul there. I don't think the merchant role should just be a trucker that knows he just hauls A to B, B to C, and C to A all the time and makes an automatic profit for it.

While I respect this kind of trading, id prefer if it was a more consistent trade model with traditional trade routes generally creating the price point. Certain commodities like gold are famously what the Spanish main were about where as new colonies needed all sorts of material from the old world and the bigger US cities. I think sole traders should be more about high danger luxeries and contraband.

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There needs to be supply and demand. Right now resources don't do anything. If they were connected to goods that are used by npcs or players, then the economy will make more sense.

Make each port require different goods and resources to progress in prosperity levels. This creates supply and demand. Different levels of prosperity require different amounts of resources and goods. More prosperous cities also produce goods from resources that are required in other ports to progress prosperity levels. Prosperous cities will have bigger and better and more ships and modules and cannons. Ships sold by the npc shipyard could take resources (say for now oak and iron). Cannons take iron (and coal?). Modules take whatever resource makes sense.

This would be too much for player involvement, especially right now, so npc traders could now have resources and they take part in the economy by moving resources around. There will have to be more traders. And more trader types. Make trader lynxes, cutters, and pickles.

Ports would have to have resources and goods that they produce. American ports along the coast could produce a ton of pine and oak. These could be shipped from dozens of US trader AI to ports all over the caribbean. Some places will produce coal and iron. Other places gold, etc.

Several ports around the caribbean should be designated major trading hubs where resources come in from Europe and the East Indies. Goods not originating in the game world would enter here. Like Teak. These ports would be good places for players to sell items that are going to Europe or other places. Tobacco produced along the US coast could be brought to a trading hub and sold for a better price as it gets shipped to Europe.

Oh, and if a port produces resources or goods, nearby ports will buy those items from the player (if they don't produce them theirselves) at a far lesser price than a port that is very far from ports that produce those resources or goods. Say Charleston produces iron. The port next over isn't going to buy iron for as high a price as Somerset, Bermuda if no iron is produced in Bermuda.

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They cant enter neutral ports, nobody can enter pirate ports if he is not a pirate. That will make pirate economy closed one from any other nation intervention.

So basicly pirates wont be able to sell their stolen goods to neutral ports, any ships, modules, etc. etc.

Maybe allow pirates to sail into neutral ports only in trader ships?.. or some small ones? Not sure.

Pirates should maybe have a wanted level. If it isn't too high with a nation, they can enter that nation's port. And anyone should be able to enter a pirate port. Maybe make it so that pirates can only have outposts in pirate ports.

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Neutrals should be able to access pirate ports. Yes, they are natural enemies, but the trader with the balls to get in and out of pirate ports should receive the benefits off being the only ones with access to their markets.